Eating Oaxaca



After 6 days in Mexico City (aka DF), we decided it was time to get out of the big city and see a bit more of Mexico. We had heard that there was some big annual cultural event going on in Oaxaca (a city located in the state of the same name, around 500km southeast of DF), so we hopped on an overnight bus and rolled into town at 6.30am.

Feeling shattered from a bad night’s sleep on the bus, we stumbled into our hostel and asked if we could check in early – we were desperate for a shower and bed. The woman at reception looked as us impassively and said check-in was at 3pm. Urgh! Six and a half hours to kill!

We dumped our bags and sloped off into town to see if we could find breakfast. What we found was a city with almost no buildings higher than 2 stories, full of markets, crafts and street food. We wandered into the first market we found and had what turned out to be a very traditional Oaxacan breakfast.

At 6.30am, the market was just starting to fill up with hungry customers. A couple of hours later this place was packed and bustling.

We started off at Comedor Bety with some sweet bread and hot chocolate:

Mmmm, sweet elixir for tired travellers! Chocolate con leche y pan de yema – hot chocolate with a sweet, buttery bread.

Next up, Bety suggested a traditional Oaxacan tamale, wrapped in a huge banana leaf:

Tamale Oaxaqueño con mole negro – a tamale stuffed with chicken and mole negro, a spicy chocolatey sauce.

With our appetites fully sated, we wandered around the market which was gradually coming to life. The stalls were stuffed full of tasty delights like chocolate, moles (mexican sauces, not furry rodents) and mezcals (distilled juice of the maguey plant).

Shelf upon shelf of chocolate – sweet, bitter, flavoured with almonds or cinnamon, you name it.

Thick, black mole stodge. They say there are 7 moles in Oaxaca: mole negro, colorado, amarillo, verde, chichilo, coloradito, and mancha manteles (tablecloth stainer!). The mole on the front left of this image has been flavoured with larvae collected from the maguey plant.

Mezcal and chocolate – a week’s supply.

After the market we headed to the town’s main square to find a huge encampment of teachers on strike. Mixed into the chaos of their tents and banners were countless people selling clothes, carvings, bags, pottery and, of course, street food. It would all have been rather exhilarating if we weren’t so exhausted. We stopped in at a bar and enjoyed a beer. The waitress brought a plate of peanuts for us a nibble and I loved the fact that in Mexico, even nuts come heavily seasoned and accompanied with wedges of lime. Why have boring old peanuts if you can have salty-sour peanuts?

Warm, salty, sour peanuts. Yes.

Several beers and plates of peanuts later, 3pm arrived and we crashed for a couple hours in our hostel. Once we’d recovered we went out to a swanky place called Casa Oaxaca. If you ever find yourself in Oaxaca, I would highly recommend this place. We had an excellent meal, the highlight of which was something called Caldo de Piedra (stone soup).

The menu described it as a seafood soup that is prepared at your table by the waiter. Well, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, so decided to give it a go. What appeared was a large clay bowl lined with raw seafood – interesting. Alongside the bowl was a large stone bowl/crucible containing a number of potato sized stones.

Before: a large bowl lined with tomatoes, chillis and delicious looking raw seafood. Was this a sashimi dish?

If you look to the left of the picture above you can just see that the waiter is pouring a warm seafood broth into the bowl. At this point we were intrigued and puzzled. What was this all about? Once all the broth was in the bowl, the waiter reached into the stone crucible and picked up one of the stones with tongs. When he placed the stone into the soup, all hell broke loose!

We hadn’t noticed, but the stones were red hot and as soon as they went into the soup, the liquid starting hissing and bubbling. It was really dramatic. The waiter carefully spooned the soup over the stone. Once the stone had cooled, it was removed and replaced with another. By the time he had finished, the soup was piping hot and the seafood was perfectly cooked.

Not only was this a great spectacle, but it was also a really delicious dish (something like a rich, spicy bisque).

The next day we found another market, this time specialising in meat. The whole place was completely hectic, full of noise and smoky barbecues.

Hot, hectic and smoky (the colourful bunting hanging from the ceiling related to that cultural event that I’ll be covering in my next post).

The market alternated between stalls displaying meat and grills cooking it. Women would frantically waft the coals to cook the meat.

We found a seat and Mrs Eat Rio was instructed by the waiter to go to the salsa stand to buy a selection of salsas to accompany our meat. Once everything was delivered we had a huge, spicy, meaty feast:

Going counter-clockwise from front-left: zingy, spicy, hot as hell.

A thin slice of roast carne de res and some salsa.

Cecina, pork coated in spicy chilli and more salsa.

Well that was delicious, but left us absolutely stuffed. It wasn’t until later that night that we were ready to eat again. We had heard that there was a restaurant (Los Pacos) that served up all 6* Oaxacan moles on a taster platter (*it is often said that there are 7 moles, but many dispute that mancha manteles belongs on the list).

Holy mole (sorry, I had to). The six main moles of Oaxaca on a single plate. I decided my favourite was coloradito (1 o’clock position).

Having selected my favourite mole, I then ordered a proper dish – chicken in mole coloradito:

Mole Coloradito con Pollo.

Are all these food photos aren’t making you hungry? Hopefully you get the picture anyway – Oaxaca is a great place to eat! After 3 days we left town several pounds heavier and headed down to the little coastal town of Zipolite. We stayed in a little beach shack, right next to the beach.

Our home for 4 days – just 20 seconds from the beach!

We hadn’t done much reading around Zipolite and it had only vaguely registered that the beach was a bit of a nudist haunt. First morning on the beach we got the picture though:

This guy in the middle cracked me up. Fully naked, he stood hands on hips and faced the rest of the beach as if to say “I AM NAKED! And no one can stop me!”.

OK, I think that’s more than enough for one post. Next time I’m going to close out all these Mexican posts by telling you about this cultural event that everyone in Oaxaca was getting so excited about. Until then, here’s some footage of that hot, smoky market full of barbecues and roasting meats.